Well, the Generals Jeep died again last Friday.

Took until midnight to find the REAL problem. This was complicated by intermittent ABS warnings without any codes set. Engine dying at intersections, etc. Apparently "ABS WARNING" when translated from Swedish means "Low Voltage".

Ok, well as with the FWD Volvo's, the battery cables rot inside the crimps, where it's not visible, and they exhibit voltage drop across the length. Volvo knows about this and specs a max drop of 0.09v. My Red cable was showing 0.34v drop, four times the limit. My friend, the master tech says he replaces them all the time on 960's and 850's. But, he added, the part that goes bad is always at the temrinals, inside the crimp. So a repair, in situ was in order.

Off to Pep Boys in the morning. As usual, this 7-11 of auto parts has almost nothing. I settle on a 25" "NASCAR" Battery cable with two ends crimped on it. Why are these all black?? Ok, got it home where I cut it to about 12", then I put red shrink tube around all three conductors, boom! Instant positive cable.

Outside I cut the battery cable on the 960 and instantly, this powdery, fluffy powder fell out. It was greenish white and several of the conductors inside were clearly over heated and discolored. But just as the man promised, 2" down, the wire was in good shape.

So I stripped both ends and frayed the cables out in a fan shape. I noticed that the Volvo cable was a very fine grade wire filament, braided like a rope, whereas my "NASCAR" cable had much thicker conductors bunched up inside the jacket. Not sure which way is better.

Before doing this, I took 2 small Fuel Injection line hose clamps and slipped them over each end of the cable. THEN I fanned out the conductors and smooshed them together at equal length. Using both hands, I twisted the cable ends together into a more or less even mass of perfectly meshed wire.

Now the trick... I slipped the EFI clamps down over the repaired section, about 1 inch apart, and tightened them, forming the repaired section in to a tight mass of copper.

With the clamps in place I lit my torch and adjusted it so that about 1/2" of inner, light blue flame was present. I preheated the repair section and gently flowed in enough silver solder to petrify this repaired section into an impenetrable mass. The solder flowed smooth and perfect underneath the EFI clamps.

After about 5 minutes of cooling I loosened the EFI clamps and remove the screws. The clamps can now be peeled away from the repair section because the galvanized coating resists the solder mass. Once removed... a solid, cylindrical mass of copper and silver solder is there.

I slipped a pre-positioned section of shrink tube over this and heated it up. Multiple layers of red tape, then stuffed into two sections of loom.

BTW, I repeated this procedure on the two adjacent branch circuits from the battery to chassis electrical and EFI. Smaller gauge wire, same process.

The car acts very diferently now. It cranks over like a spastic rabbit. Whereas before, it sounded like an old tired V-8.

The cold idle RPM's are much higher, but settle right down to 850 when warm. Overall, better performance and pickup. Also, I took apart the alternator connection, de-ox'ed and sanded it, then flowed a solder joint into it as well.

This problem is very widespread and was at the root of many vague problems the car has had for over a year. Worth checking out.